xsnightclub said:
The single button mouse is useless, to those who are to lazy to use their other hand.
Of course, you're damn right! And I should have the right to be lazy when I am. I, personally, love using commands. Besides confusing my friends while doing something on my iMac (and also with my PC back when I still used it
), it gets a lot of stuff done faster. But no matter what some people say, there's nothing wrong in contextual menus being accessed via a second mouse button.
So, you think I should be denied the right to have a two-button mouse "out-of-the-box", or bundled, or whatever, without having to feel bad about throwing away into a drawer a perfectly functional mouse?? It feels bad, and it's a waste of money... I bought a two-button mouse with scroll wheel from MacMice, which is a nicely built "rip-off" of the Apple Mouse, but at a cost...
I don't know if you read the first post that ignited, again, this debate; anyway, I'll spare you from doing that. What I said was that Apple should let you CHOOSE whatever
Apple branded mouse you like, be it single-button wired, single-button BT, multi-button with scroll-pad thingies and god knows what else, etc, etc, etc. Unlike dontmatter, I'm not suggesting Apple should drop the single-button mouse concept altogether. I just think they should just add some other options, get it?
Anyay, here's why I think that multi-button mice CAN be superior to single-button ones: other switchers, like me, find the control-click combination very awkward. Btw, I must say that I used the original Apple mouse for a few months and got quickly used to it. But I always felt I was missing something, until I finally got that new mouse. And I used Windows for many, many years and Mac OS X for more than one (and I love it) So, I KNOW what I'm talking about because I've used both kinds of mice and both OSes.
Have you ever thought that it IS INDEED very awkward for unexperienced users to combine keys and mouse clicks, perhaps even more than using secondary mouse-clicks? For designers and all pros that's a natural thing to do, we have to perform a lot more of those combinations, so we get used to them. But for most users, it's easier to either use either pure keyboard commands or dedicated mouse clicks, period. I've seen it myself, colleagues of mine learning how to use photoshop and vector drawing apps, getting confused about actions as trivial as "holding shift to constrain". Now imagine someone who only uses M$ Office or does some web browsing, who is unfamiliar with those tricks (except maybe when selecting text), but may find that extra button handy?
Just a practical example: I'm holding a sandwich and reading some news on the web, while chatting with someone. I want to paste some text into my buddy's window. I don't want to drop my sandwich so how can I do such thing with only one hand (and of course, without needing to drop the mouse and type commands)?
With a single-button mouse: Select, click on "Edit" menu, select "Copy", use the Exposé active corners to find his window (on the worst case scenario, press F9), select the input field, click on "Edit", select "Paste". Press enter!
What about a two-button mouse? Aha! Select the text, right-click, select "Copy". Use Exposé. Right-click on the input field, select "Paste", and Press enter!
Now, what about a multi-button mouse? Even quicker: select text, right-click, Copy, use Exposé with dedicated mouse button, right-click input field, select Paste, press Enter!
The three all look preety much the same, but if you read carefully, the last one is definitely the fastest (of course, I wrote that last sentence with no periods, to make it seem faster
. But it is indeed faster).
Another thing: someone once told me (dunno if it's true) that Ctrl-clicking is good from an ergonomic standpoint because it forces people to keep both hands on the desk... But you know, If you force those unexperienced users to use Ctrl-clicking to open contextual menus, they will likely ignore that function altogether. Why do you think Apple introduced the "Actions" button in the Panther Finder!? The thing is, there's no way you can have "Action" buttons all over the interface in each program, that's just plain stupid (as it is with the Finder, but that's MHO because I use a two-button mouse and know how to use Ctrl-clicking anyway...). So, even Apple acknowledges that those users don't take full advantage of Contextual menus, thus sometimes laying only one hand on the desk. Huh, so much for the ergonomy concerns.
It's a lose-lose situation!
And now, the final stab! You're trying to do the same Copy-Paste thing holding a sandwich, this time on an Apple laptop. Ouch, now you have to reach the Edit menu using that tiny trackpad...
As for Exposé, you either reach the active corners also with the trackpad or go for the F keys. If Apple includes those nifty volume control and eject buttons on their keyboards, couldn't they include some dedicated Exposé keys next to the trackpad? Like, to make things a little bit easier? It's the same company that developed the clickwheel, damn it! It's true that having a lot of buttons with unidentifiable icons printed on them usually looks fugly and causes clutter... But EXPOSÉ! It has become
ubiquitous, perhaps as much as volume control... (I'm ranting because I've been playing with a friend's iBook today, and I'm still thinking about the experience) 'nuff said </rant>
[edit] Hey, now that I thought again about the clickwheel (sorry for the long post guys, but I must add this
), I started wondering... Apple could develop some sort of clickpad. A laptop touchpad with clickable corners! Now that would be sweet, since it could be configurable
Damn, I should apply for a patent!
